Hundreds of adopted children in the United Kingdom have been contacted by their birth parents, who used social media sites like Facebook to track them down. One adoption support group in Victoria says the process can be illegal, and a mother of three adopted children in the UK says it can be highly traumatic.

Adopted children can sometimes spend their whole lives wondering about their birth parents because the search process through official channels can take years. One adopted teenager in the UK received a message on Facebook saying “Hello, I am your father.

I have been searching for you ever since you were stolen by social services. You look beautiful. I love you so much.” The father who wrote the message is a registered paedophile, whose children were removed by social services and later adopted.

It’s a development that has concerned some psychologists, who fear the destabilizing impact that kind of sudden contact could have.

In Britain, health services fear that some birth parents, and in particular those who may have been abusive in the past, could track down their birth children via sites like Facebook to establish or re-establish contact. Some psychologists have reported that adopted children have displayed troubled behavior after their parents had unexpectedly re-established contact :: Read the full article »»»»